Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754868Ab0AVWAA (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:00:00 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754664Ab0AVV77 (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:59 -0500 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:52217 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932123Ab0AVV76 (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:58 -0500 Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:59:11 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds X-X-Sender: torvalds@localhost.localdomain To: "Frank Ch. Eigler" cc: Oleg Nesterov , Andrew Morton , Stephen Rothwell , Peter Zijlstra , Peter Zijlstra , Fr??d??ric Weisbecker , LKML , Steven Rostedt , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , linux-next@vger.kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" , utrace-devel@redhat.com, Thomas Gleixner Subject: Re: linux-next: add utrace tree In-Reply-To: <20100122200129.GG22003@redhat.com> Message-ID: References: <20100120062834.GB12165@elte.hu> <20100120072925.GA11395@elte.hu> <20100121013822.28781960.sfr@canb.auug.org.au> <20100122111747.3c224dfd.sfr@canb.auug.org.au> <20100121163004.8779bd69.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20100121163145.7e958c3f.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20100122005147.GD22003@redhat.com> <20100121170541.7425ff10.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20100122182827.GA13185@redhat.com> <20100122200129.GG22003@redhat.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (LFD 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1406 Lines: 34 On Fri, 22 Jan 2010, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote: > > Finally, I don't know how to address the logic of "if a feature > requires utrace, that's a bad argument for utrace" and at the same > time "you need to show a killer app for utrace". What could possibly > satisfy both of those constraints? Please advise. The point is, the feature needs to be a killer feature. And I have yet to hear _any_ such killer feature, especially from a kernel maintenance standpoint. The "better ptrace than ptrace" is irrelevant. Sure, we all know ptrace isn't a wonderful feature. But it's there, and a debugger is going to have support for it anyway, so what's the _advantage_ of a "better ptrace interface"? There is absolutely _zero_ advantage, there's just "yet another interface". We can't get rid of the old one _anyway_. And the seccomp replacement just sounds horrible. Using some tracing interface to implement security models sounds like the worst idea ever. And like it or not, over the last almost-decade, _not_ having to have to work with system tap has been a feature, not a problem, for the kernel community. So what's the killer feature? Linus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/